Italy’s Great Divide Tests Europe’s Ambitious Recovery Efforts
Record European Union spending is yielding results—and jobs—in the northern province of Verona. But progress remains sluggish down south in Brindisi
Illustration: Maxime Mouysset for Bloomberg Markets
To grasp the European Union’s challenge in reinvigorating economic growth through its biggest-ever package of spending, consider two flagship projects at either end of Italy, the country receiving the most money.
Up north, some 180 people are already working eight-hour shifts, building a tunnel for part of the 77-kilometer (48-mile) high-speed railway that will link the Renaissance cities of Verona and Padua and complete a network from Spain to Ukraine. But down south, plans to add new docks and liquefied natural gas facilities to Brindisi’s port—once known as the Roman Empire’s Door to the Orient—are only grinding forward, struggling to overcome southern Italy’s persistent economic and bureaucratic malaise.